A LaPlace woman has been jailed on charges of operating an illegal dog rescue service that kept 50 canines at her home in unsanitary conditions, with some animals having no food or water. Authorities said they removed the dogs from the Longwood Court house on two separate visits.

Joyce Charles was warned that she could not operate her Happy Yappy Doggy Rescue at her home but continued to do so, St. John the Baptist Parish officials said. On May 7 an animal control officer removed 40 dogs that were housed throughtout the home in pet carriers called kennel cabs. The cabs were soiled with dirt, urine and feces, authorities said Thursday. Some of the dogs were kept in the garage without food, water or air circulation, the Sheriff's Office said.

On Tuesday, authorities arrested Charles, 46, after receiving a tip that she had taken in more dogs. Sheriff's Office detectives, with animal control officers, executed a search warrant and seized 10 dogs, authorities report.

Charles was booked with cruelty to animals and one count of improper zoning use. She remains in custody, in lieu of a $17,000 bond.

The dogs were taken to the St. John animal shelter, said Sgt. Dane Clement, a Sheriff's Office spokesman.

Alissa Johnson, president of Animal Helper, a nonprofit animal rescue organization in New Orleans, said her group has seven of the dogs that were taken from the LaPlace house in May. One is a Pekingese named Buddy that was nearly blind, and doctors initially thought it might lose an eye, Johnson said. However, through treatment and surgery the dog has regained most of its sight, she said.

Johnson said she was familiar with Charles from the woman's pet finder website and that Charles followed her organization on Facebook. She said most of the dogs taken from Charles' house came from local animal shelters and were most likely scheduled to be euthanized, which is the point when legitimate rescue operators step in to save the dogs and find homes for them through adoption.

However, she said, many public animal shelters, especially those in rural parishes that might not have good adoption programs, don't properly screen rescue workers to ensure they are legitimate. "The problem is that anybody can walk into a shelter and say they are a rescue worker, and they are not checked out," Johnson said. "Then they suffer."

After the May inspection at Charles' home, Johnson said she found out through word of mouth that Charles had obtained other dogs. She said she wrote in July to ask St. John authorities to keep Charles from getting more dogs.

One of the dogs that Johnson said Charles obtained from a regional shelter was a boxer with a broken leg. "She didn't take it to the vet and treated the dog with drugs she had at her house," Johnson said.